


The Kindness War

by spoowriterfic



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16546277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoowriterfic/pseuds/spoowriterfic
Summary: Both Wynonna and Nicole care deeply about each other -- they're just not that great at showing it.  They're also very competitive.  Put those two together, and you get an in-the-background battle between them to outdo each others' good deeds.This is a companion piece to "The Sun is Just Around the Corner" but you don't have to have read that for this to make sense. However, the frame for this story is set partway through the season 3 finale, so beware of spoilers.





	The Kindness War

_“Did we get ‘em?”_

_Someone was standing over her, but she couldn’t make out any of the features of the person’s face – just a dazed, blurry impression of a wild mane of dark, curly hair that she vaguely felt like she should recognize._

_The world was a largely incomprehensible haze and she didn’t quite remember who they needed to ‘get’ or why, but the question seemed very important._

_It was a tether; it grounded her, pulled her back, just like the hand on her forehead that was stroking her hair just like her aunt used to every time she’d come to stay and couldn’t sleep because she was homesick._

_No one – no one – had done that for her since the fire._

_Had it been a fire?_

_Why did that sound wrong?_

_A voice derailed her train of thought. “Nicole. Holy shit…you’re really okay. Thank Go-Char…lian.” She didn’t understand the wry snort that followed the whispered statement but she did recognize it._

_Wynonna._

_That was who was attached to the hand._

_Wynonna._

_As though putting the pieces together in her brain reconnected some kind of circuit, her face came into focus as she looked up._

_Wynonna._

_Waverly’s sister._

_Looking down at her with a wry, heartsick, conflicted little smile._

_Oh, God._

_Waverly._

_More of the fog cleared in a rush of panic and adrenaline. A lot of pieces were still out of place but she suddenly knew Waverly was in great danger. “Where’s Waverly? Is she…?”_

_“She’s in the house. It’s okay. She’s okay.” Then Wynonna shrugged with a fatalistic roll of her eyes. “Well, for now. What the hell happened, Nicole?”_

_She didn’t quite know where the word came from, but she said, “Beekeepers” and knew it was the truth._

_As she said it, another circuit closed in her brain and she tried to sit up, to see her side, which…didn’t hurt anymore._

_It ached a little, and it felt warmer than the rest of her body. It felt a little…hollow. But it was nothing compared to the way she remembered it feeling before._

_She made it up far enough to see her open shirt and untorn skin beneath it, then collapsed back on the hay with a confused look up at Wynonna. “What? What happened? M-my side…?”_

_Wynonna’s hand was back on her forehead, soothing her and encouraging her to remain lying down all at the same time._

_It was…terrifying…to see her being so openly affectionate._

_It wasn’t that she thought Wynonna didn’t care – she knew she did, even with her brain still half-scrambled – but she could count on the fingers of one hand the times Wynonna had actually shown it._

_“What do you remember?”_

_Nicole frowned. Her world was still mostly contained to the stalk of hay sticking into her back, the lingering scent of blood mixed with hay and dirt, Wynonna’s hand on her forehead, and her worry about Waverly. She searched her memories, then exhaled and opened her eyes. Pieces began to coalesce – the Gardner house, bandaging Kate’s wound and then: “Beekeepers attacked us. I got stabbed.”_

_“You were…dying.” Wynonna held up her blood-covered hand as evidence. She couldn’t remember why, but somehow she knew that the thickness of the blood on Wynonna’s hand and the color of it meant she’d been very close to death indeed. “Julian healed you.”_

_Another circuit snapped shut. “Julian? Waverly’s father Julian?”_

_She didn’t quite understand the complex expression on Wynonna’s face when she answered, “Julian.”_

_“He’s…Julian’s…here? Did Michelle…? Is she back? Where did – ?”_

_“Well, you know, funny thing about that. Turns out Mama’s on a wild angel chase. Julian is Charlie. Or…Charlie’s Julian.”_

_“…Charlie. From Fire Services. That Charlie. The same Charlie you – ”_

_“Yep. Apparently schtupping an angel runs in the family.”_

_Things were finally starting to coalesce in her brain, at least enough that she was able to quip, “You sayin’ we’re family?”_

_Wynonna chuckled. “Might as well change your name, Haught. Guess you probably should put a ring on it first, though.”_

_“I will,” she said a little dreamily. “Soon as Waverly wants me to.” She didn’t say aloud that she’d always known on some level that Waverly was her future._

_“You still puttin’ her in the driver’s seat?”_

_That wasn’t even a question, but she was surprised to hear Wynonna address it so directly; not even Waverly had ever done so. It had been there in their relationship from the very beginning, of course – from the day she’d wrestled up the courage to go into Shorty’s and hold out her heart in her hand._

_And wait for Waverly to take it._

_“Always,” Nicole said. “She spent…so much of her life…letting other people push her into what they wanted – or what she thought they wanted. I won’t do that to her. Ever.”_

_She said it with the strength of a vow and Wynonna looked away, her eyes suspiciously watery. “That’s why I told him to save you. You’re the only person in the whole world who even comes close to deserving her, you know that?”_

_This was an unprecedented level of sentimentality from Wynonna. “You’re scarin’ me.”_

_“World’s ending. You’d have died if my ex-boyfriend the angel with amnesia hadn’t saved your life. Waverly thinks she should turn into a statue and guard the Garden of fucking Eden. My baby daddy Doc the vampire killed my ex-boyfriend Charlie, who is also my sister’s father and the angel love of my mom’s life, and then tried to kill him again when Waverly resurrected him with his own magic ring. Feels like an okay time to say you’re good people.”_

_Nicole opened her mouth to say ‘Fair enough’ but snapped it shut before any words came out only for her brain to catch up to what Wynonna had said. She frowned and asked, “Wait. Resurrected Charlie?”_

_“Yeah; you’re gonna have to work pretty damn hard to top raising my ex-boyfriend from the dead.”_

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It had all started just after they’d de-tentacled Waverly.

Nicole had been putting her lunch away into the refrigerator in the break room when she saw a boxed personal sized pizza – with pepperoni, sausage, real cheese, and actual, real crust. With actual gluten.

It was basically a box full of foods Waverly cordially hated.

And it was labeled ‘Haught’ – with a label-maker. Disguising the handwriting was an unusual step, but she figured that maybe Waverly didn’t want Wynonna to be jealous that she’d brought lunch for her girlfriend but not her sister.

She’d texted Waverly immediately – just a simple thank you and a heart emoji – only for Waverly to reply with just a question mark.

It hadn’t been Waverly.

It was Wynonna. It was a peace offering, and one she wanted kept on the down-low.

And she mostly tried – but when Wynonna had shown up practically begging for a distraction, she hadn’t let any of the impatience that she sometimes felt for Wynonna and her hijinks show. She had – ineffectively but still – done her best to help, at least until Waverly had come in and had taken on her usual role of Wynonna Whisperer.

And thus began the subtle war of invisible kindnesses.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A few days after leaving the pizza for Nicole as a ‘thank you’ for not shooting her at tentacle-Waverly’s orders, Wynonna was staring helplessly at the coffee maker in the break room trying to find something – _anything_ – that was worth drinking.

Being pregnant had been a shock.

Realizing that meant no booze _or_ caffeine for nine months…that had been a seismic realignment of her entire life.

Waverly had gotten a box of assorted herbal tea bags and another of K-Cups of more generic black tea, but despite Waverly’s persistent attempts, there was no way she was actually going to drink any of that.

Then a different package of K-Cups caught her eye. It was just sitting there behind the creamer and sugar, but Wynonna picked it up when she saw the W-E written in block letters stenciled in Sharpie.

Decaf.

She made a face, but then she noticed the graphic of a gold ribbon on the front of the package. “Winner of best-tasting decaf in five blind taste tests.”

Hm.

The side of the box was covered with testimonials about how this particular decaf tasted basically like real coffee.

It was probably just marketing nonsense but, well, it was worth a shot.

She stuck the K-Cup into the machine, waited, and then took a cautious sip.

Damn. Not marketing nonsense after all.

She texted Waverly: _Thanks for the coffee_.

Only a few seconds later, the reply came: _You can’t drink coffee!!_

Haught.

Damn.

She was going to have come up with something _awesome_ to top this.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nicole had had worse hangovers in her life, and she didn’t really regret trying to steal the saliva sample – after all, she genuinely felt for Wynonna, who absolutely didn’t need the complication of not knowing who her baby’s father was – but she’d admit to being a little peeved how it had all gone down.

That felt petty, just like it felt petty to be annoyed that Wynonna had dunked her phone in a pitcher of beer. After all, in the grand scheme of things, her own troubles were so…mundane.

And it both was and wasn’t about the fact that Wynonna had suddenly become very, very pregnant.

Wynonna had already been unwillingly saddled with the burden of being the Heir and now had to face the fact that the Curse would survive another generation – which was the last thing Wynonna had wanted and which was something she had apparently actively tried to prevent from way too young an age.

And now that she was the Heir, it was no longer an abstract in the way it had been when she’d made that decision in the first place; she knew intimately the burden her child would face. It was her day-to-day life and would be her child’s if she couldn’t break the Curse.

So she’d willingly headed over to the Homestead to provide some moral support as soon as Waverly had called, though she hadn’t quite anticipated the adventure that was to follow.

Meanwhile, her head was still pounding and her stomach still a little rebellious when she got to the station the next morning.

And then, on her desk, she saw aspirin, ginger ale…and a new phone. Left over from Black Badge, no doubt, but still. It even had a case in her favorite shade of blue.

Damn it.

How the _hell_ was she going to top this?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It turned out circumstance had given her two pretty damn good ways to top a new phone, though she’d only thought of it that way after the fact and would have willingly done both no matter what. And though she’d have been happy to let them go, it seemed Wynonna considered both part of their ongoing competition; she’d caught Wynonna sending speculative glances her way and dropping not-so-subtle hints about ‘six months’ and ‘anniversaries’ fairly regularly ever since.

Blowing herself up to get Wynonna back – well, that had mostly been desperation…and the fact that, in any reality, Waverly could ask her to do the backstroke across the vacuum of space just to bring her some moon dust and she would do it with a smile on her face.

But saving Alice?

It had killed Wynonna to ask – for about a dozen different reasons; she’d had no choice, faced with that kind of pain, to do exactly what Wynonna had asked.

It had only occurred to her much later that she and Wynonna had both asked the other to do the most difficult thing imaginable for each other…to save Waverly the pain of having to do it herself.

And she also realized that somewhere along the way, she’d come to love her girlfriend’s sister like…well, a sister. Yes, Wynonna could still drive her to complete distraction and, yes, she was still kind of a hot mess, but she was a hot mess with a good heart who was utterly devoted to her family and was trying her best to create a better future for all of them.

And Wynonna had decided that the best person to give Alice _her_ best chance at a future was…Nicole.

That trust had meant more to her than she could properly put into words.

It was funny how much she’d come to love a baby that wasn’t hers or even Waverly’s, and though she knew her own pain was nothing compared to what Wynonna’s was, setting up Alice’s escape had been a nightmare. So much could have gone wrong, and she’d forced herself to imagine every scenario she could think of in an attempt at heading off all of them at the pass.

Captured by demons? She had a plan for that. Revenants threatening to eat the baby? She had a plan for that. Black Badge coming for the baby for some sort of sick experiment? She’d had a plan for that.

She’d had a backup plan, too, for a half-revenant baby who would have to be kept safe and hidden within the Ghost River Triangle.

She’d even had a backup plan for more mundane things like a breech birth and stalled labor.

Because when Nicole Haught made contingency plans for something this important, she made _all_ the contingency plans.

There had even been a plan for stillbirth – though that backup plan had been mostly concerned with trying to keep Wynonna from drinking herself to death.

Knowing what it would do to Waverly, who loved the baby almost as much as Wynonna did…that had been heartbreaking on a whole different level. So of course she’d had a whole set of contingency plans for Waverly-related complications too.

Something changed for all of them after Alice.

It had shattered them in some ways, but it had also given them something tangible to fight for. Most nights, they all went out as a group hunting revenants; where Wynonna had always been determined to break the Curse, she was now close to obsessed with the idea. It was understandable of course, and they’d all happily come along for the ride – the idea of passing this horror onto Alice was unthinkable to all of them.

And as spring turned into summer, Nicole began to wonder, no matter how competitive she and Wynonna tended to be with each other, whether their energies might be better used to defeat Bulshar and end the Curse. They could go back to outdoing each other afterwards, right?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Letting herself be blown up in the vague hope that it might bring Wynonna back from oblivion…well…it rated the biggest salvo in the kindness war yet, and the quietly heroic lengths she’d gone to in order to keep Alice safe had just upped the ante even further.

Wynonna knew that Nicole had not had an ulterior motive for either of those actions, thus making them not _technically_ eligible for their ongoing competition to outdo each others’ good deeds, but she wasn’t going to let technicalities stop her from continuing it.

It had taken a while to pull everything together.

She’d started with a few sly references to anniversaries. She hadn’t been entirely sure they were needed, since Waverly had an eerie facility with dates and Nicole was so clearly head-over-heels in love that she probably knew down to the minute the date and time of every moment she’d ever spent with Waverly.

It was almost funny – in every other area of her life, she was so utterly calm, together, competent. But put Waverly anywhere near her, and she dissolved into walking heart eyes.

The next step had been to plant the idea of going out to a nicer restaurant than Shorty’s or the town diner, which was currently in the process of becoming a catchall place that served everything from spaghetti to pho to burritos to naan and hummus. It didn’t do any of them particularly well, though they did have pretty good bread sticks.

Complicating the restaurant matter had been the fact that while Waverly was an avowed vegan, Nicole had once mentioned that every once in a while she craved a nice, thick, medium-rare steak. Finding somewhere that was perfect for them both had been the next step.

It hadn’t taken much, really – just a drive out to a nearby ranch with a steakhouse overlooking a lake and a few suggestions to the owner about how she might get a whole new set of clientele from the big city if she added some vegetarian and vegan food to the menu.

And, just to cover all her bases, she’d semi-casually mentioned that she’d thought of it because her sister was vegan while her girlfriend was not. She was rewarded with a bright smile and the owner asking how long they’d been together.

Food they could both eat _and_ a properly inclusive environment? Check.

She’d gone back a couple weeks later and grabbed a sample menu, which she’d then left on top of a stack of magazines in the break room, right next to the microwave where she knew Nicole would reheat her leftovers from the dinner she and Waverly had cooked at the Homestead the night before.

Nicole had almost caught her grinning in triumph when she saw her looking through the menu, but she was able to wrestle a skeptical look onto her face just in time.

A romantic dinner overlooking a lake at sunset in summer at a restaurant that served both their favorite foods would have been enough, but Wynonna, never one for half-measures, called the restaurant once she was sure Nicole had made reservations. She had made sure they knew that Waverly and Nicole were celebrating an anniversary and had pre-paid for their dessert and a round of champagne with strict instructions that the restaurant was to pretend both were on the house.

And then fate gave her the perfect finisher.

She’d used the excuse of Waverly spending the night at Nicole’s to drop Waverly off for their date but in reality, it was more because she wanted to bask in the triumph of all of her sneaky planning.

And then she’d seen Nicole’s eyes widen when Waverly had hopped out of the truck.

Much as she teased Nicole about the fact that Waverly seemed to fairly often reduce her to a puddle of sappy, romantic, love-struck goo, seeing that look change from appreciation and attraction into pure, absolute adoration had stilled any lingering doubts in Wynonna’s mind.

No way, no how would Nicole Haught be leaving her sister with a broken heart.

She’d almost slipped when Nicole asked her to take a picture of them but remembered herself just in time to faux-casually suggest a selfie, knowing Nicole would insist on a proper picture instead, if only to be contrary about it.

Nicole had come through like a champ, practically shoving her phone into Wynonna’s hand even though her eyes never left Waverly.

Waverly had stood on the step behind Nicole, resting her chin against Nicole’s cheek and holding her from behind while Nicole – now looking a little dazed and a lot smitten – held onto Waverly’s arm.

It was a great picture, beautiful even, and Nicole was so busy being a love-struck teenager in an adult’s body that she didn’t even notice Wynonna texting the picture to herself.

Picking the lock to get into Nicole’s house to leave the framed picture in her bedroom had been trivial, but the best thing – the _best_ thing – was that while they both clearly knew where the pictures had come from, neither of them ever expressed any suspicion that the whole _rest_ of their date had been orchestrated in any way.

Still, she knew she was in for it if either of them ever found the third framed picture, which she’d kept for herself, in her own nightstand. In her darker moments, she took it out and looked at it just to see how happy her sister was now.

Nicole was going to have to work _damn_ hard to beat this.

(Though, Wynonna thought, maybe the smile on Waverly’s face in that picture was payback enough. Nicole was largely responsible for that, after all.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After the picture and the dinner, and especially after the restaurant’s manager had mentioned in passing how a customer from Purgatory had given her the idea to expand her menu, Nicole decided to switch tactics. There really wasn’t anything _bigger_ she could do for Wynonna, but she could absolutely inundate her with constant, tiny, invisible kindnesses.

Which was where all of this had started, really, before their shared competitive nature had gotten in the way and they’d started trying to outdo each other at each step.

It had started small: getting up early to brew some coffee on the nights she stayed at the Homestead; ‘finding’ some good whiskey ‘hidden’ in the barn; cooking dinner at the Homestead to make sure Wynonna had some nourishment other than donuts, whiskey, and anger.

Wynonna, in her turn, had kept Nicole in a steady supply of non-vegan lunch foods, cat treats for Calamity, and trail mix to snack on. She often came into the office in the morning only to find her paperwork copied and arranged on her desk, and her mail more often than not managed to appear already sorted on her kitchen table (she’d long-since accepted the fact that Wynonna was a champion lock-picker and didn’t think much of the mail at all).

And then Wynonna had wrecked the truck.

Or, rather, Bondage Bob, as Waverly had named him, had planted the spike strip that had wrecked the truck.

And Nicole had decided she was going to _fix_ the damn thing one part at a time, if she had to.

It started simply enough – she’d asked a friend who worked for the local impound lot to flip the truck back over and tow it to the Homestead.

Then she’d found someone who had some ‘extra’ tires.

And someone who happened to have an extra front bumper.

By the time things had really come to a head with Bulshar, the truck was almost back to its regular beaten-up self and Nicole was pretty damn proud of herself.

She and Wynonna had also reached a measure of peace after being chased through the woods by a lovesick garden gnome, and privately she kind of wished they could call a truce in their kindness war.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

_Wynonna had gone to the door of the barn to see if Charlie was coming back with Waverly when Nicole tried to sit up. “Woah,” she muttered as she toppled ungracefully to the side. She hadn’t realized until that moment exactly how weak she was._

_Wynonna bolted back across the barn to too late to catch her, but she sat next to her anyway and steadied her as she tried again. “Take it easy, there. No rush. Well, I mean, impending apocalypse, but Waverly will kill me if she comes in here with you looking like that.”_

_“I thought you said Charlie…Julian…he healed me.”_

_“According to Doc, you left half the blood in your body on the road between where he found you and here. God only knows how much you bled out onto the road before he found you. I’m guessing magically gluing your side back together didn’t put all that back.”_

_“…Doc?”_

_“He found you collapsed on the side of the road. Carried you here. Guess he figured if you were gonna die you should at least do it with Waves nearby.”_

_The finality of that thought shook her to her very core._

_She wasn’t ready to be separated from Waverly – not even close to ready._

_Involuntarily, she touched the skin on her neck, probing for fang marks. “He – he didn’t – try to – ”_

_“No.”_

_Nicole nodded, pushing the more uncomfortable thoughts to the side. “You have any coffee or something? I can’t afford to be down for the count when whatever happens next happens next and I feel kinda like a good breeze would knock me over right now.”_

_“Well, you probably could seriously use a blood transfusion. You’re white as a ghost. I mean, there’s normal Nicole ginger-pale and then there’s you right now. But meanwhile, best I can do is some baby carrots in the refrigerator – if the revenants didn’t eat them all – and some whiskey in the cabinet.”_

_“Guess that’s better than nothing.”_

_“I’ll go get you some,” Wynonna said. She stood, waited for a moment to make sure Nicole could stay upright on her own, took a few steps towards the barn door, only to stop and fix Nicole with a glare. “Oh. So. Why the hell did Doc find you passed out on the side of the road? You have a goddamn police cruiser, Haught.”_

_“I didn’t want to get it all bloody.” She shrugged at Wynonna’s look, which was half skepticism and half outrage. “And I didn’t think…I was that far away.” She shook her head, realizing as she said it how ridiculous a thought it had been. She’d been…miles from either town or the Homestead. What had she been thinking? “I…maybe there was something on the…knife…I don’t think I was thinking clearly.”_

_“No shit, Sheriff.”_

_“I just knew wanted to be…here.”_

_Wynonna flung her hands up in a helplessly irritated shrug, then shook her head and said, “Waves resurrected Charlie, then he saved you. I’m gonna have to work my ass off to top that.”_

_“Or,” Nicole said, “we save the world without sacrificing Waverly in the process and call it even.”_

_Wynonna smiled – her real, genuine smile – and gave Nicole a loving, gentle look she had always before reserved for Waverly alone. “You got a deal, almost-sis.”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> So.
> 
> This started with (1) wanting to show Wynonna's half of getting that picture taken, (2) loving the idea of Nicole and Wynonna sneaking around being secretly nice to each other, and (3) dealing with the fact that Nicole knew that Charlie was Waverly's dad (which, unless Doc also got an earful at some point, was info that had to come from Wynonna, which meant they'd had at least one off-screen conversation).
> 
> The exchange about "schtupping an angel" running in the family was a happy bonus and is quite possibly my favorite pair of lines I've written for two characters in *years*.


End file.
